Do you have a dedicated homeschool space? Do you have a classroom, or office, for homeschool use? When I first started homeschooling, I thought that I needed one. Over time, I’ve realized that, for our family, the best learning happens at our kitchen island, or on our back patio, or entirely outside of the home. We start our morning with Coffee and Books and see where the day takes us. Some days, we school in front of the woodstove. Other days, we take the show on the road.
Homeschool School Room, Or Lack Thereof
A lot of people have asked what our homeschool room looks like. I totally understand wanting to see how others do this homeschooling thing. It’s exactly why I’m so obsessed with every homeschool day in the life series out there. But, the thing is, we don’t really have a homeschool room. At least, we didn’t until very recently.
When I decided to suddenly, unexpectedly, homeschool, I put all of my homeschool materials in our bedroom closet. Some women have closets filled with shoes but I had one with teetering stacks of curriculum. Over the winter, we homeschooled through major construction. The result was a beautiful kitchen and pantry. Following construction, we worked really hard to get the kitchen and pantry back together and they look beautiful. The pantry makes me want to break out into song when I open its door, folks. Going from no storage to heaps of storage is amazing, plus we color-coordinated with help from the Dollar Store. My pantry is the closest I’ve ever come to a Pinterest-moment in my almost thirty-seven years:
Creating a homeschool school room
When we re-did the kitchen, we also added an office. While our post-construction kitchen looks gorgeous, we ran out of steam, and bookcases, when it came time to putting the office together. Technically, this is our homeschool room:
Those piles are organized by subject-ish, but what a mess! If you have some homeschoolin’ school room advice for me, I’d gladly take it!
School room reality
I desperately want to bring order to those piles of curriculum in our school room, however, I doubt we’ll ever do much schooling therein. Here is just a sampling of our school “room” over the course of the past year.
When I think back on the past year of homeschooling, I see that so much of our best learning happens outside of the school room. It happens outside of our four walls: in nature, at the library, in our backyard, with friends, on field trips, while traveling, etc., etc., etc. If I’ve learned anything this year it is this: school is just a building. Learning happens all the time if you just relax and let it.
Now, it’s your turn… Do you have school room organization suggestions for me? Do you school at home, or does much of your learning occur outside of your four walls? Share here!
You nailed it. Who needs an official “school room” when so much of the homeschool experience happens when your kids *aren’t* sitting at a table!
Totally envious of that kitchen pantry!!! 🙂
We have somewhat dedicated spaces just to keep the STUFF that comes with homeschooling, but no real homeschool room; we just don’t need it!
I loooooove your schoolroom, looks ideal to me! You need not replicate the traditional form when what you’ve got is far superior! So good 🙂
Love this post! Very encouraging to the rest of us who have that ‘lack thereof’ home school room lol! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you, Stacy!
I’ve been homeschooling for 18 years now or thereabouts (when do we actually start) and during that time I’ve had a learning room in one house and not in another. And now we have a room again and I’m about to turn my attention towards ‘decorating’ it’ ie build cupboards and I’m examining our lifestyle closely, do we really need it? What we do need is a library, which we have, oh bliss http://sevenlittleaustralians.com/library-reveal/
and we need a set of storage cupboards but that doesn’t mean I need to devote a whole room to them, oh and wall space for our blackboard I do use that to teach our older children. Mostly though we learn on the lounge, the trampoline. The older children use the blackboard and then return to their individual desks in their rooms.
Sounds like a great set-up!
I asked my 8th grader if he wanted a desk or a comfy chair for his room. He ended up with a gamer rocker chair and lots of pillows on his bed. I made space in my craft room for his microscope and bio supplies but most of his learning takes place sprawled in his room.
Love this!
Love this post! I love that learning occurs everywhere and anywhere! ANd your pantry looks great. Mine isn’t nearly as ordered.
For years I’ve similarly schooled at the kitchen table and island if we were doing inside work and used the office as a library, just so I could find the books I needed! After paying $26 for a book that I came home and realized I already had I organized my two big IKEA wall to wall bookshelves by subject. It was incredibly helpful! I could easily walk in there and grab whatever theme I was looking for or be aware of whatever curriculum I already own in whatever subjects! We have since moved and I had to leave hundreds of my books behind so now I no longer have a huge personal library, but we do have a dedicated Lego room that I also put a map on the wall for tracing, a doll house for my six-year-old who prefers dollhouse to Legos, stacks of board books for the toddler, and a few other educational toys. This is the room where we go to do read louds, it’s been working beautifully as everyone lays around on the floor and plays while I read. I also have colored pencils and paper so we try to replicate the Masters and color maps up there as well.
Your space sounds amazing, Bethany!
We use our front room because it has the best light, windows that view the foothills surrounding us, and two comfy couches for read alouds and one-on-one time with mom. Adjoining this room is a den where we keep all our school materials, but can simply close a door to keep it contained and hidden from friends. It was worked very well for us, especially for those long winters when we prefer to cuddle under blankets and watch the snowflakes fall rather than venture outside.
Comfy couches are the best!
I live in Hawaii and space is at a premium here. We don’t have a dedicated room. We do most of our seated work on our dining table on our porch. I have 2 hallway closets that store our supplies and books. My daughter has a small table that moves where she wants but most of the time she uses the floor.
I love this. Hawaii is my favorite place on earth and I think I would homeschool entirely on the porch if possible <3
This made me cry! So beautiful and so true! We homeschoolers and blessed with the very best classroom!